Death Smiles On Us All All We Can Do Is Smile Back
by priss-chan
Summary: Nigel dies and Sylia is starting to have SERIOUS problems with sanity. Twisted, dark fic. But funny.


Author's Note: This is a dark fic. Dark. Twisted. Very. I was in the most random mood when I thought of and subsequently wrote it and it took so much energy to write, even though I actually managed it in about three hours. It was just a random idea I had that I thought would be fun to write, and it really was. Well, enjoy, and try not to take it too seriously.  
  
Oh, I almost forgot, Disclaimer: I do not own Bubblegum Crisis Characters, and I also do not own the title. The title is a line from a great movie: Gladiator. Great movie, and a great line, and I thought it was appropriate.  
  
This is an Alternate Universe/Alternate Ending type thing, it takes place between volume 9 and 10 (they have the new suits, they know about Galatea, the ADP know about the dragon line, Nigel has told Sylia not to wear her suit, etc, etc, etc)  
  
Death Smiles On Us All, All We Can Do Is Smile Back  
  
"Dammit, Nigel those girls needed my help!" Sylia yelled, her argument building up now. She was sick and tired of Nigel telling her what she could and couldn't do. She was needed. Not by him, but by the Knight Sabers. She downed the rest of her scotch and threw the glass against the wall, shattering it.  
  
"It's not good for you Sylia. It's already starting to affect you. These mood swings are not natural, you have to stop or it will kill you!" Nigel growled back at her with a lot more heat then usual. He knew she wouldn't accept this, but he had to tell her.  
  
"Why don't you just go back to your pathetic little drunken existence at that miserable garage and stay out of everyone's way, all you do is drone on and on and everyone hates you so just go back to your pointless life!" Sylia yelled, in full force now. She was fuming, you could almost see the smoke coming out of her ears. But her face fell as she saw Nigel's expression. He looked stricken. She had never seen so much emotion on his face before as he stiffly turned to go, picking up the almost full bottle of rye by the door before leaving. Sylia's face hardened again. It was his own fault. Let the bastard do what ever he wanted.  
  
-*-  
  
Nigel burst through the front door, almost empty bottle in hand, startling Mackey out of his skin. He marched over to his 'special' cabinet and reached in as he drained the bottle in hand. He pulled out another bottle of rye and a small pharmaceutical bottle. He reached in again, taking out a pad of tiny paper and a bag of shredded dry plant along with a lighter. He walked over to his favourite chair, an old, battered armchair, and settled into it, taking a huge swill from the bottle and rolling some of the dried plant. He took five of little red pills from the bottle and swallowed them with some of the rye. Mackey quietly crept away, recognizing his mood and that he was in less of a mood to talk then usual. Nigel lit the end of the roll and took a deep pull, alternating with the bottle until he had drunken and smoked himself to sleep.  
  
-*-  
  
"Overdose?" Priss echoed, shocked.  
  
"That's right ma'am. I'm very sorry. You're sure he has no living relatives?" Priss nodded solemnly. Poor Nigel. He had always been there, and now he was gone. It had been a huge shock to her, but Sylia was an absolute wreck. The doctor walked away, leaving Priss alone with a broken- hearted Sylia. Linna and Nene hadn't come, it would look too suspicious with the four of them all there. Nene was with Mackey back at Sylia's, he was also pretty broken up about this. It had been a huge shock to all of them, but Sylia was inconsolable. Priss sighed. She was going to have to try anyway. She hated consoling people.  
  
She sauntered over to Sylia and took the picture of her in. She pushed her own private grief for Nigel away, realizing it would take all of them just to keep Sylia from going insane with grief. She sat down next to the solemn woman, with her ravaged blue hair and blotchy, tear-streaked face. Her eyes were puffy from crying and she had chewed her fingernails almost completely off. She was in her nightgown and Priss' jacket, having been called while she was asleep and coming immediately. She was beyond crying now though. She had had storms of weeping, mostly on Priss' shoulder, and fits of screaming her denial. Then she had sat in this chair with her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking and salty tears dripping onto her lap from between her clenched fingers. But now she just sat, staring blankly forward, her eyes filled with such guilt and grief it could not be expressed. Not knowing what else to do, Priss tentatively reached out, taking Sylia's hand in her own. Sylia put her other hand over Priss' and turned to look at her.  
  
Priss knew this was her cue to say something wise and comforting. Shit. She decided on not saying anything and instead pulled the heart-broken woman towards her and hugged her for the first time in her life. When she released her, Sylia just nodded, tried to smile and failed, and then went back to staring blankly ahead of her. Annoyed that she couldn't do anything else, Priss stood up and walked over to the other side of the room, taking out her phone and dialing a familiar number. Linna's sober face appeared on the screen as she asked, "What is it Priss?"  
  
"Can you come down here?" Priss asked, really not knowing what to do and wanting to deal with her own substantial grief.  
  
"We decided it would be too suspicious for more then one of us to be there with Sylia." Linna replied.  
  
"Well then I'll go. I don't know what to say and I'm not doing any good here. Please, Linna."  
  
Linna's face took on a strange expression. She had never heard Priss say please to her before. "ok" she answered. "I'll see you there." Priss relaxed as she clicked off her phone, leaning against the wall. She cast a look to Sylia, hating to see the normally confident, if a little over- stressed, woman like this.  
  
-*-  
  
"Come on, come on, come on!" Priss yelled, encouraging Nene and Linna to get into their hardsuits faster. "This boomer's on a rampage!" "Where are you Sylia?" She called out of the door. There was no answer, so Priss, fully suited, ran to find her. She found her lying by her pool in her swimsuit. "Come on Sylia, we've gotta move!" Sylia didn't answer her. "Sylia!" Priss shouted. Still no answer. Priss gave up and ran back to the launch bay, preparing to speed towards the sight of the latest rogue boomer, a huge hulk of violent, car eating metal.  
  
-*-  
  
Priss grunted as the breath blasted from her lungs on contact with the pavement. She blinked to clear her swimming vision and got up, only to see Nene being held fifty feet up in the air by a metal extremely, slowly squeezing her to death. She heard Nene scream over the com system and ran to her, seeing Linna charge for the boomer's conduits to the dragon line. With huge effort she leapt into the air, preparing to blast through the extremely holding Nene captive with one punch. She could see Nene's hardsuit ripple and crack as she blasted her fist into the arm, only to have it sink right in. Her fist was stuck in the boomer, and she could feel it reaching out, trying to absorb her hardsuit and then her arm. It started as a prickling sensation that got sharper and sharper, moving farther and farther up her arm and over her chest. She sank deeper and deeper until she could feel unbearable, shooting, searing pain in every part of her body. She heard the screams of her team mates as they suffered similar fates, and the last thing she saw before her head was sucked in was the ADP firing round after round of everything they had into the thick conduits, trying to sever them. And then the pain stopped and the screams, explosions ended. And everything went black.  
  
-*-  
  
Sylia sat silently in the ambulance, listening to the sirens searing in her mind as they sped towards the hospital. She looked down at the faces of the three girls she loved most, with respirators and needles and pieces of hardsuit clinging to their flesh. They looked so peaceful, compared to how they must have looked before. The three of them had suffered a metallic intrusion, there were millions of red pinpricks all over their bodies and a lot of their harsuit had been permanently melded to their skin. All three were in comas, pulses faint, and would probably never wake up. All because Sylia hadn't gone with them to fight. At least that was how Sylia saw it.  
  
If she hadn't been so selfish they wouldn't be here, they wouldn't be Knigh Sabers. If only she had told them what they were getting themselves into. It was all her fault. Everyone was dead because of her. Nigel, Linna, all of them. And next would be Mackey, and then Henderson. Everyone she loved would die until only she was left, an empty shell. She had to accept that, and maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. They were dead. Everyone was dead. The whole world would soon be dead, Galatea would take over the world and enslave them, all because Sylia had let her father implant a chip in her brain. She was the sole downfall of this planet.  
  
The paramedic looked up from his work on one of the fallen Knight Sabers to stare at this blank woman. She had appeared on the scene of the attack just as they were packing up the injured Knight Sabers. Supposedly she was the fourth one, so she was allowed to ride with them to the hospital. She looked so heart-broken. She was even mumbling nonsense to herself. He certainly didn't want to be the one to tell her that if her friends didn't make a drastic change in condition soon there was no hope.  
  
-*-  
  
The doctor stared at the strange, blue haired woman who was mumbling to herself. "Excuse me" he said tentatively. He got no answer so he repeated himself, and when he got no answer again he continued anyway, "I've come to tell you good news." he started, hoping for a response. None. "Anyway, your friends seem to have made somewhat of a miraculous recovery. All at once their heart rates sped up enormously and all the metal clinging to the shrank back and fell off. It was amazing, like they had some sort of psychic control of the metal. Anyway, they are now recovering and should live." Sylia's head shot up at the word live.  
  
"I- It can't be" she stammered, "they died, they died, they died" she repeated over and over.  
  
"You can go and see them if you like." the doctor said tentatively. He walked over and gently guided her out of the room towards where Priss, Nene and Linna were recuperating. Sylia muttered over and over under her breath, "they died, they died, they died, they died" until quite suddenly she stopped. Her face snapped up and she said to the doctor in a clear voice, "Did you remember to walk the geranium's dear?" The doctor stared at her and then continued, he would deliver her to the room and then she would no longer be his problem. He opened the door and gently pushed her inside, quickly closing the door again behind her.  
  
She stared around incomprehensibly for a few moments, all the while muttering, "all dead, all dead, buried in the back yard, killed by the geraniums, all dead, chewed, mangled, all gone, left me," Linna opened her eyes at the noise and looked over.  
  
"Sylia..." she said weakly. Sylia's eyes widened at her voice and stared at her.  
  
"Y-you can't be here! You died! You all died! All dead! Buried, gone abandoned me! Abandoned me, left me for the crows! All dead, All dead! No daddy, no! That's a bad boomer! Please no daddy! Don't leave, no one leave, all leave, DON'T LEAVE ME!" what had started out as barely a whisper was now an almost incomprehensible scream, "Don't leave me daddy! I can't go on my own! You took mama but don't leave me! No Nigel, Daddy, Nigel NO! I can't! The boomer did it! Don't take it away, don't, don't, don't, YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME!" Sylia was collapsed on the floor, screaming out and weeping uncontrollably. The other three occupants stared at her, to shocked to move even if they could. Sylia got up, still screaming, "I'll kill you daddy, I'll kill you, you can't take it away, don't take it away, don't do it or I'll kill you like you killed mama and like I killed the rest!" She quieted for a moment, recovering a little.  
  
"If I can see you, then I am dead too." she said calmly. "Everyone is dead." Then she smiled a bitter, twisted smile. "We're all dead together now, daddy." And with that she walked out of the door, calmly strolling out of the hospital and to the street. Without looking she walked out onto the street, right into the path of an oncoming eighteen wheeler. She turned to face the truck, its headlights searing through the night air and the noise of its horn blasting into Sylia's mind, with the screeching of its tires. "Now we can all be dead together, daddy, and it won't be anyone's fault any more." Sylia smiled as she released all the guilt she had carried throughout her life and squarely faced the oncoming truck, smiling as her knight in shining armour bore down on her to carry her away from this world of pain. And then everything was black, and she was guilty no more.  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: See what I mean. Twisted. Exhausting. 


End file.
